But there’s a clear objective to this objectification: detonation — to blow up the stereotype of the emasculated Asian man. If you’re not familiar with Hollywood’s troubled history of portraying Asian men, it’s a given that if an Asian man pops up in a mainstream movie, he’s going to be asexual.

“There’s nothing else to call him but the butt of the joke, because everything that makes him powerful is the very thing that makes him laughable in the film,” said Yuen, who found the depiction and her theater’s reaction to it insulting. “His kung fu becomes a joke, and his philosophizing becomes a fortune cookie, and the sounds that he makes as he does kung fu are literally made fun of by Cliff. They made his arrogance look like he was a fraud.”

I’ve had managers, agents, producers and directors tell me to change my name, to color my hair lighter or darker, or to do my makeup in a more or less ‘exotic’ style.Multiracial Asians are often gently urged to push themselves out of the racial DMZ: to make themselves more Asian, or less, as if it's not possible to be both.

Since being cast as the star of Disney’s live-action remake of the animated movie, Bailey, who’s black, has become a target of racist trolling. Huey, who’s Japanese American, touched on the controversy in an interview with The Wrap and offered some advice to the fellow Ariel actress.